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Cultural History of Modern War
Behind enemy lines: Gender, passing and the Special Operations Executive in the Second World War
Behind enemy lines is an examination of gender relations in wartime using the Special Operations Executive as a case study. Drawing on personal testimonies, in particular oral history and autobiography, as well as official records and film, it explores the extraordinary experiences of male and female agents who were recruited and trained by a British organisation and infiltrated into Nazi-Occupied France to encourage sabotage and subversion during the Second World War.
With its original interpretation of a wealth of primary sources, it examines how these ordinary, law-abiding civilians were transformed into para-military secret agents, equipped with silent killing techniques and trained in unarmed combat. This fascinating, timely and engaging book is concerned with the ways in which the SOE veterans reconstruct their wartime experiences of recruitment, training, clandestine work and for some, their captivity, focusing specifically upon the significance of gender and their attempts to pass as French civilians.
This examination of the agents of an officially-sponsored insurgent organisation makes a major contribution to British socio-cultural history, war studies and gender studies and will appeal to both the general reader, as well as to those in the academic community.
With its original interpretation of a wealth of primary sources, it examines how these ordinary, law-abiding civilians were transformed into para-military secret agents, equipped with silent killing techniques and trained in unarmed combat. This fascinating, timely and engaging book is concerned with the ways in which the SOE veterans reconstruct their wartime experiences of recruitment, training, clandestine work and for some, their captivity, focusing specifically upon the significance of gender and their attempts to pass as French civilians.
This examination of the agents of an officially-sponsored insurgent organisation makes a major contribution to British socio-cultural history, war studies and gender studies and will appeal to both the general reader, as well as to those in the academic community.
- GenresWorld War II
256 pages, Paperback
First published November 27, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 11, 2018
I found this book at what is rapidly becoming my favourite second-hand bookstore in London.
There is a very academic-paper tone to this book in that each chapters sets up ‘this is what I’m going to tell you,’ then tells you what it’s telling you, then sums up what it’s just told you.
That said, it’s exactly, and I mean *exactly*, the research I was looking for. I wanted to know what it felt like to be a woman working in the SOE, and this book tracked down the interviews and the research and parsed it all out for me. From recruitment all the way through to being reintegrated back into normal life after the war.
It explored how gender affected the experience of being an SOE agent, even if sometimes the agents themselves weren’t aware of it, or weren’t willing to admit it.
And it also looked in great detail at how agents handled passing as French civilians, and how that experience of constant performance of a persona not their own was a) achieved, and b) affected them.
This book is a treasure trove of details, particularly useful for writers trying to recreate the experience of living as an agent in the SOE.
There is a very academic-paper tone to this book in that each chapters sets up ‘this is what I’m going to tell you,’ then tells you what it’s telling you, then sums up what it’s just told you.
That said, it’s exactly, and I mean *exactly*, the research I was looking for. I wanted to know what it felt like to be a woman working in the SOE, and this book tracked down the interviews and the research and parsed it all out for me. From recruitment all the way through to being reintegrated back into normal life after the war.
It explored how gender affected the experience of being an SOE agent, even if sometimes the agents themselves weren’t aware of it, or weren’t willing to admit it.
And it also looked in great detail at how agents handled passing as French civilians, and how that experience of constant performance of a persona not their own was a) achieved, and b) affected them.
This book is a treasure trove of details, particularly useful for writers trying to recreate the experience of living as an agent in the SOE.
March 29, 2013
I just ordered a very inexpensive copy of this on Amazon!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews